Text | Zhang Wanzhong
【collision】
The film is 6 hours long and I see myself in both the protagonists, older brother Nicolas and younger brother Madio. Among them, Madio's suicide left me uneasy for a few days, until I figured out why, and I was probably afraid that I would go there too.
On New Year's Eve, his girlfriend came to the police station where Madio worked and asked him why he didn't show his real name and why didn't he say goodbye?
Madio responded with rage and ended his relationship with his girlfriend. When he returned to interrogation work, he again lost control of his temper and shot at the suspect. This is not the first time he has argued with people while performing police work. Then he returned to his mother's house, where the family was having a good time playing card games, and he forced a smile and hid in his room on the pretext that he had something to deal with.
He tried to dial his girlfriend's phone, but couldn't get through. Madio decided to return to his home. At the door, his brother asked him if he would not say goodbye to his mother. Madio said he was in a hurry and left again on the grounds of work.
Back at the deserted home, he turned on the TV, checked whether there was still fresh food in the refrigerator, and continued to call his girlfriend, but he still missed it. Then he walked to the balcony, squatted down, watered the landlord's green plants, and leaned against the balcony railing.
He took off his shoes, stopped, walked back into the room, closed the balcony door, stared at the TV, the people inside were congratulating each other "Happy New Year", he followed by saying "Happy New Year", and then Turning around, he rolled over and fell from the balcony. The sky was bright with fireworks, and he committed suicide.
That night, his girlfriend once said to him: "You like books because you can give them up at any time, but life is different, it's not up to you."
If I had to describe Madio in one word, I would use idealism. He is accustomed to characterization of things, with clear polarities. When things don't develop as he understands and expects, he becomes dissatisfied, becomes aggressive, and ultimately hurts himself.
But the world is never unitary, but a complex complex of various contradictions colliding with each other. Everything, including character, emotion, experience, is not static, flow is its essence. Hoping for it to be constant, Madio is destined to be the injured party.
Every incident that didn't meet Madio's expectations was like an inexplicable loophole, deliberately sabotaging the system on which Madio depended to survive, bringing an inexorable sense of frustration. He is too trusting and obsessed with his own experience, and will be extremely repulsive and angry that others cannot understand those important things.
There are many examples. Madio is reluctant to marry because he feels that the constant quarrel between his parents will be repeated in his marriage.
In the interview at the university, he was reprimanded by the professor because of his different literary opinions.
After discovering that the mentally ill Zozhen was illegally electrocuted by the hospital, he sneaked into the hospital in the middle of the night to bring her out, and together with his brother Nikolai, looked for a way out for Zuozhen. But Zuozhen was accidentally taken away by the police in the middle of the journey. Madio left his brother and jumped on the train overnight to prepare to join the army.
He has high self-esteem and can't stand the slightest humiliation. During his enlistment training, when someone threw a water polo on the wall to scare him, Ma Di was furious and shouted, "Don't play with me, anger me!"
Madio's choice to be a soldier may be an attempt to compromise. He tries to get along with the forces that "govern the world", to do things according to orders, and to do things within himself. But he couldn't turn a blind eye, and the resentment caused by innocent and unjust events in his heart often made him out of control.
Madio hated when his friend Nuky, whom he knew on the team, was wounded or paralyzed for life in an explosion-proof operation. Had he not been stopped, he would have killed the man who harmed Nuki.
When Madio was a police officer, there was a murder in the butcher's shop. The butchers just wanted to get off work early. The passersby watched. Madio was angry that they didn't care about death, but only cared about his own insignificant life. He said angrily: "There are corpses here. Not making a movie."
【Escape】
Madio's father's assessment of him is also accurate: everything is tense and emotionally fragile.
When my father came to the room to talk to Madio, Madio would specially remind his father to close the door when he left. Apart from being close to his brother Nikolai, he has distanced himself from the rest of the family. They don't interfere with his decisions and respect his freedom, but Madio remains alone because he can't empathize.
Once driving past his parents' house and watching his mother walk with his father, Madio knew that his father might have a physical problem, but he failed to summon the courage to get out of the car to meet his parents. He could only step on the accelerator and drive away quickly, but he never imagined that this was the last time he and his father would see each other.
My sister said that Madio didn't exist as a mother, but that's not true. He just couldn't love as deeply as others. Madio was so afraid of disappointment that he was suspicious of an emotional life.
When he gets along with Zuozhen, he obviously cherishes it. He reads love poems to listen to her, and puts in coins to choose her favorite songs. But when Zuozhen has no intention of doing something wrong, he can't help but lose his temper and destroy the relationship.
The taken Zozhen and the paralyzed Nuuki, they may mean death in Madio's heart. His attitude towards life is indeed the same as his attitude towards books, and he may withdraw or abandon it at any time.
Even if he met his girlfriend later, Madio liked it very much, but he was afraid of getting close and promised to pick her up, which was actually a lie.
Every disappointment, like a cut, collapsed silently inside Madio's body. He was constantly withdrawing quickly from one place in the world and starting all over again in another. The continuously changing trajectory made the world seem riddled with holes in his eyes. The real loneliness made Madio afraid of the exchange of true feelings. He was afraid that the other party would disappoint him, and he was even more afraid that he would disappoint the other party.
Therefore, the relationship with his parents, it is better to stay when he is away from home, which can make him feel a little relaxed. With his girlfriend too, disappearing silently was the best decision he felt. Because the added interaction may upset the balance he has accepted. With love comes anticipation, and he cannot predict the subsequent reaction.
Rather than saying that life has the possibility of getting better, it is better to say that decay and deterioration are the essence of life. This kind of repetition between good and bad is a cowardice that Madio regards as a shame. He had no choice but to be alone and to escape.
【despair】
Suicide, Madio was forced to retreat by despair. If he is brokenhearted, he will always be brokenhearted.
Life elsewhere seemed to the lost Madio, no different from what he encountered in reality, and he had no possibility of starting over, and simply gave up his life.
He also hesitated and walked back to the room from the balcony, but after seeing the perfunctory and easy pleasure of others on the TV, he decided to jump into the abyss.
It was his near-inevitable despair that kept him from ascribed his suicide to impulse or to seek other possibilities for his life.
It doesn't matter that the two phone calls were not connected before committing suicide. There is no "if" here. This ending is more like fate. I don't feel pity, only fear.
I found that I was too similar to him, and I also had an idealistic tendency, and I was afraid that at a certain moment, I would reach that step.
What disappointed Madio, even if it wasn't a betrayal, was a kind of damage he couldn't digest, like a thorn stuck in his throat forever. The world is not for the idealist, who despairs of himself with all kinds of standards.
Madio's anger and loneliness is because he does not accept the shortcomings of this world, and he is separated from real life. Others cannot understand this invisible fence. They love him, but cannot approach him.
After he committed suicide, his family was like a book abandoned by him, something he cherished but gave up because of an incompatibility defect. So Mom sat in Madio's apartment and insisted on taking a few of his books with him. Holding his book, his mother was walking on the road, suddenly collapsed, threw the book away, and burst into tears.
The book that was smashed to the ground, just like her after learning the news of Madio's suicide: on the surface, it is still the same person, and there is no loss, but the interior has been destroyed by this blow.
In fact, my mother and brother Nicola are completely different people from Madio. They are compassionate, action-oriented, and will share the pain of others. For example, for many years, my mother would visit the paralyzed Nuuki once a week to encourage him and introduce him to a girlfriend, rekindling the hope of Nuuki's life.
And brother Nicola, respecting freedom, believes that everyone has the right to choose the life they like. After the Zuozhen incident, Nikolai decided to become a psychiatrist, hoping that he could relieve the pain of people like Zuozhen, and he really did.
Their actions surprised Madio, things that were unimaginable to him. He was used to walking away and starting over. Facing failure and working hard on the basis of failure is not something he can afford. But the truth is that Zoe Jin is not dead and Nuki will get married. But Madio committed suicide, and the Nicolas bravely survived.
Although the place is beautiful, but there is no hope, it is better to "be happy in pieces when you are happy, and let it go when you are suffering."
(2018.10.16)
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